For contingeny’s sake, we have no choice. Say, to give a quick number, there’s a 49 percent chance that the biosphere will be partially/totally destroyed in the next 2 centuries. Then the choice is:
1. let it slide and hope the biosphere and sentient beings are saved deus ex machina; i.e by ETs.
2. do something proactive.

Posted by B.J. Murphy on 01/14 at 03:52 PM

Wasn’t it Robert Zubrin, famous aerospace engineer and author, who said “Let the meek inherit the earth—the rest of us are going to the stars!”? This was attributed to him in his contribution to the published work Islands in the Sky: Bold New Ideas for Colonizing Space.

Personally, I think uploading astronauts is the coolest idea I’ve heard in a month of Mondays. It just makes so much economic sense—why haul all that oxygen, food, water, etc. into space when you can just send the intellect?

It is also supported by a certain body of literature. Arthur C. Clarke was writing about it long ago, and Olaf Stapledon before him…

Thanks Ó Murchadha for the other source of the quote:
“Let the meek inherit the earth—the rest of us are going to the stars! Here’s how it’s going to be done.” — Robert Zubrin”
http://www.amazon.com/Islands-Sky-Ideas-Colonizing-Space/dp/0471135615

I think many people said these of similar words, they are a quite obvious (for people like us) continuation of “Let the meek inherit the earth.”

@VictorS - not Stapledon (that I know of), though I am sure Stapledon would have supported the idea. Quote?